Sandy eBook

Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through
the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end,
across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where
he dropped exhausted.

Off and on during the night he knew that there was
a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening
to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural
that he did not know where the dreams left off and
the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his
left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock
of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth,
and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and
fall with the flicker of the flames. And when
he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly
black face bent over him, and the chant changed into
a soothing murmur:

CHAPTER VI

Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which,
in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the
long hill to the north, but growing indolent with
age, had decided instead to go around.

Main street, broad and shady under an unbroken arch
of maple boughs, was flanked on each side by “Back
street,” the generic term applied to all the
parallel streets. The short cross-streets were
designated by the most direct method: “the
street by the Baptist church,” “the street
by Dr. Fenton’s,” “the street going
out to Judge Hollis’s,” or “the
street where Mr. Moseley used to live.”
In the heart of the town was the square, with the
gray, weather-beaten court-house, the new and formidable
jail, the post-office and church.

For twenty years Dr. Fenton’s old high-seated
buggy had jogged over the same daily course.
It started at nine o’clock and passed with never-varying
regularity up one street and down another. When
any one was ill a sentinel was placed at the gate
to hail the doctor, who was as sure to pass as the
passenger-train. It was a familiar joke in Clayton
that the buggy had a regular track, and that the wheels
always ran in the same rut. Once, when Carter
Nelson had taken too much egg-nog and his aunt thought
he had spinal meningitis, the usual route had been
reversed, and again when the blacksmith’s triplets
were born. But these were especial occasions.
It was a matter for investigation when the doctor’s
buggy went over the bridge before noon.

“Anybody sick out this way?” asked the
miller.

The doctor stopped the buggy to explain.

He was a short, fat man dressed in a suit of Confederate
gray. The hand that held the reins was minus
two fingers, his willing contribution to the Lost
Cause, which was still to him the great catastrophe
of all history. His whole personality was a bristling
arsenal of prejudices. When he spoke it was in
quick, short volleys, in a voice that seemed to come
from the depths of a megaphone.